


we're so sad, we paint the town blue

by Full_Of_Grace



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, F/F, pining that goes nowhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24489877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Full_Of_Grace/pseuds/Full_Of_Grace
Summary: "Veronica is the first female friend Betty has ever had. It seems strange to think about it, but it’s true. She’s always been bad, with girls. She felt wrong, like everybody else was performing a play she hadn’t gotten the script to, and she was left stranded center stage in the floodlights, grasping for something to say."Sometime between seasons 2 and 3, Betty and Veronica have a sleepover. Betty thinks a lot and says little.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 12
Kudos: 43





	we're so sad, we paint the town blue

**Author's Note:**

> The first thing I'm posting in months and it's Riverdale fanfiction with a title from a Taylor Swift song. Much to think about. 
> 
> Warnings for an implied eating disorder and for underage drinking.

At the end of the day, they are still sixteen. It feels strange and wrong that they are. Betty feels impossibly old, like she is maybe eighty or ninety. Sometimes she looks in the mirror and expects to find an old woman, skin hanging loosely from a shrunken frame. Sometimes she expects a ghost. But there is only Betty Cooper, in her pastel sweater with her hair tied up. Looking like the all American sweetheart everybody has figured out she’s not by now. 

Veronica has invited her to a sleepover, and Betty is going. She’s nervous about it, like this is a test of some kind and not a normal thing that girls do with each other. She still wants to impress Veronica, even if they’re already supposed to be close. It should be easier than it is. They’re best friends, and their boyfriends are best friends. They like each other. They talk every day. But Betty still checks her outfit in the mirror three times before she drives to the Pembrooke.

Veronica’s parents are gone for the weekend the way they are always gone, so they can do whatever they want. What Veronica wants, it turns out, is to split a bottle of white wine. “I saved all my dinner calories for alcohol,” she says, smirking as if that is funny and normal. Betty wants to say something but doesn’t. Instead, she laughs a little too loudly and drinks. 

“Cheers!” Betty says, and they both laugh this time, some of the alcohol slips from her glass. “Cheers to summer!” Even if it’s an awful summer, even if Archie’s on trial because Veronica’s dad put him there, and Betty’s dad is a murderer, and they are a million years old at sixteen. It’s summer and it’s pretty outside and they are drinking an expensive wine she can’t pronounce the name of, and they are going to have a good fucking sleepover. 

“Cheers to summer!” Veronica says. “Cheers to B and V!”

They finish the up bottle and start on another while watching some old drama film, and it seems like it’s maybe the saddest thing in the world, those mournful little people in their greyscale world. Betty will have to ask Veronica what the title is later, she’s already forgotten it, she has to see if it’s on the list of movies Jughead wants her to watch. He knows a lot about movies.

She’s crying by the time the movie is over, feeling out of her body with empathy and grief. “That’s so, so sad.” She tells Veronica, and thinks vaguely that she should feel embarrassed. “I just think it’s so sad. They were in love and he couldn’t even, didn’t even say anything until it was too late.” 

Veronica laughs at her, and Betty glares, feeling profoundly stupid. “It wasn’t that sad! You’re just drunk!” Veronica’s smiling very widely, and Betty’s resentment vanishes as quickly as it’d appeared.

“You’re drunk!” Betty pokes her in the chest. “You didn’t even eat anything so you’re, you know, you’re probably more drunk than me.” She laughs, knowing even as she’s saying it that it probably isn’t true. Veronica has way more experience with drinking than Betty has, even if Betty abandoned being a goody-two-shoes ages ago, months ago. 

“C’mon,” Veronica says a little too quickly, “come on, it’s a sleepover, we have to fulfill the sleepover tropes; we should go paint our nails.”

Then they’re on the floor of the bathroom, Veronica’s beautiful massive bathroom, with a big tub you could probably swim in. Veronica is squinting while trying to paint her own toenails a dark plum shade. Betty insists that she has to be the one to do Veronica’s hands, because V will mess up if she tries to do it herself. Veronica might have experience drinking, but her fingers are wobbly with the brush. She’s too used to salons, not used to self-sufficiency, even now.

Betty leans back on her palms to watch Veronica move, and admires the way her hair shines in the pink specialty lighting in the bathroom, the way she purses her mouth so intently. She looks like a princess maybe, or an empress, reigning over her private domain. She’s so beautiful. She’s so good at this. Not painting her toenails, she keeps slipping at that, but just at being a person. At throwing an ordinary girl sleepover. 

Veronica is the first female friend Betty has ever had. It seems strange to think about it, but it’s true. She’s always been bad, with girls. She felt wrong, like everybody else was performing a play she hadn’t gotten the script to, and she was left stranded center stage in the floodlights, grasping for something to say. She liked fixing cars more than going shopping, and she was too focused on her studies, and her mom never let her play soccer so she couldn’t even properly befriend the tomboys. And she’d had Archie and Kevin (and Jughead, as an accessory to Archie). She didn’t need to hang out with girls and gossip about what boys she liked. Betty had only ever liked the one boy anyways. Two boys now, she supposes, thinking of Jughead. He’s a foggy image in her mind here, in this pink lit room with her brain buzzing pleasantly from the alcohol.

Veronica is good at the girl thing though, in her way. It’s like a performance with her, but everything is a performance for Veronica. It had put Betty off of her when they’d first met, but now she sort of likes it. Veronica’s boisterousness and strange references and flashy, absentminded displays of wealth make her who she is. Or at least who she seems to be. Is there a difference? Once more Betty thinks of her pastel sweaters, the American sweetheart, the dark thing she worries lives inside of her, the old woman she expects to see in the mirror, the––

She’s so lost in thought she must have not heard what Veronica asked her, because Veronica is looking at her with expectant dark eyes and Betty has no idea what to say. Then she notices that Veronica is holding out the bottle of nail polish, wiggling it invitingly. 

“Help me out?” The question seems oddly earnest, almost as if Veronica thinks she might refuse. Betty scoots closer and takes the proffered polish. She takes Veronica’s hand very gently, as if it’s something she could break. 

“You’re good at this,” Veronica says after she finishes one hand, and Betty looks up to see that Veronica is looking right at her, the strangest expression in her eyes. If everything Veronica does is a performance, this doesn’t fit with the show. Betty is reminded uncomfortably of that first day, the cheerleading tryouts, the––

Betty looks down again and paints the other hand. “Have you done this a lot?” She asks. “Like with your friends in New York City? Did you paint each other’s nails?”

“Mostly we went out to get mani-pedis together. We didn’t really do sleepovers.” Veronica pauses. “Or at least I didn’t. The other girls might have done them without me.” 

“That’s sad,” Betty says, the wine making her too honest.

“Yeah.” Veronica laughs then. “I guess it is kind of sad. It’s ok though. This can be a new thing for each of us!”

“Trying new things is wonderful!” Betty says in a mock first-grade teacher voice, and they both break into peals of laughter. Betty jerks and accidentally paints a stripe of polish onto Veronica’s finger, which makes her laugh harder. 

“Here, here, lemme get it off.” Veronica stills and Betty grabs her hand, pulling a piece of toilet paper from the roll near her shoulder to gently wipe Veronica’s pinkie. She has nice fingers–– long, smoothly tanned. The plum color compliments them perfectly. “All better!” She smiles, and Veronica is smiling too, and it’s beautiful, she’s so beautiful, and her dark eyes are shining from either laughter or tears. It’s so sad, Betty thinks incoherently, drawing her hand away, it’s so so sad. 

“I’m getting tired,” Veronica says, standing up. “We should probably go to bed after these dry. We can do yours in the morning. If you’re alright with that?”

“That’s fine.” Betty stands up too, knowing they’ll forget tomorrow. “That’s totally fine. I’m tired too.”

“We can share my bed,” Veronica says, and Betty shakes her head.

“It’s alright.” She tries to look cheerful, catches a glimpse of her own face in the mirror behind Veronica. “I’ll just take the couch.”


End file.
